Shadowed Dawns
by J.M.Spellbound
Summary: WOWL verse:He was the thing bots feared in the dark. A legend that ruled the shadows. Over the vorns they called him many things for it. Titles he earned by the energon on his claws, and the deadly smirk on his lips. And he'd loved it, once, for they say you're only ever as good as the stories they tell about you. Jazz didn't start out as a story, but Meister did. (Jazz/Prowl)
1. Prologue: Dark Starts

**Disclaimer** **: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.**

 **Hello all! Seems my muse has decided to throw something else at you all, so here you go. This is a prequel of sorts to one of my other stories _What Once Was Lost._ It is a direct tie in to that story and is set in that universe I have spun into existence for what I suppose now is becoming a series. If you are new to my adventures I'll go ahead put here, you do not _have_ to read _WOWL_ to read this story since all of it happens before that one, but it might not be a bad idea.**

 **But anyway, here we have the start of Jazz's story. I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

Prologue: Dark Starts

Polyhex in the Third Age under the rein of Sentinel Prime would have been a comical comparison to what the once great city had been if anybot left living in it still felt like laughing. True, the spiral city near the northern arch of the world had never been as grand as Iacon with its limitless grace, as awe-inspiring as Praxus and its musical crystals, or as useful as Kaon with his seemingly endless mineshafts, but once _long_ ago this silver city near the top of the world had been something worth value.

Music, art, and imagination had flowed through its elevated streets cut through mountain sides and down into the a deep valley bluffs. Laughter was common, fuel was easy to find, and work was to be had. They were no War Academy of Iacon, but the music and art Academies of the city were large and well-funded. Hard work there would give a bot a chance at a bright future of their choosing.

Taking the gifts of talent that seemed to be somehow coded into so many of this city and encouraged for the beauty they brought to the metal world of grey around them.

Masquerade was old enough to remember the last age. In which the degree logged away in now seemingly forgotten archives blinking beside his name still meant something. In which he had still been able to make a living based on the skills of his voice, not the curve of his frame. In which Polyhex was still looked on like it and those that hailed from it were worth more than berth ornaments.

All of that seemed a life time ago though.

There was no place in Sentinel Prime's Cybertron from the things that made Polyhex proud. So, there was no place for Polyhex.

It had started out slow.

Subtle enough that no bot noticed until it was too late to stop it.

First, positions for what so many of this city were could no longer be found outside the valley. There was apparently on more need for music teachers, artist, or songwriters. It was all a waste of time, with no real substance to the work. There were more noble talents to be pursuing.

Then the changing of city senators, and a voice among the Grand Council for the common bots of Polyhex was wiped out. Next came the fuel shortages, the layoffs, and the lose of outside funding from the wealth of Iacon that had once provided the Polyhex Academies with life was cut off.

And their valley became a tomb.

Half an age, seven hundred vorns Masquerade had done what so many others had done. Ignored, hoped, and watched. Waiting for somebot else to fix the problems that were steadily growing around them, but no bot ever did and now here they all stood in the aftermath.

A once wonderful city collecting rust and disease as the shadows closed in around them all.

If Masquerade had been smart he'd have done what those wise enough to see what was happening coming had done and left. If he'd been paying enough attention instead of clinging to false hope he'd have taken what measly positions he owned with him and headed somewhere else. He might not have been able to go on doing what he wanted to do with his life, but at least he might have stood a chance.

Instead, he had waited and hoped things would simmer down. That life would go back to normal, because it couldn't be possible could it?

One mech—be he Prime or not—couldn't just _decide_ Cybertron had no use for the likes of his city anymore. One mech couldn't just wave a hand and their entire way of life be over forever.

Masquerade should have taken a look at what Sentinel did to the Tribes his first four hundred vorns as Prime and had his answer there. He should never had underestimated the lengths that damn royal coded bastard would go to get what he wanted.

If he hadn't, maybe he wouldn't be standing where he was now. Leaning against a busted window watching the acid rain pound down outside turning a city of now dim lights, rusting buildings, and hungry frames into something more pathetic then it already was.

Maybe he wouldn't be in this mess.

And yet, somehow, as he stood here now with this warm bond in his chest he wasn't sure if he could actually say he regretted the life he had come to find himself in now.

He might hate what he did now.

He might hate that now instead of selling his voice he sold his interface equipment, but life was what it was and now, there was the small silver thing resting quietly on a pillow just across the room because of it.

He wasn't sure if he could truthfully say he regretted anything that had to do with him.

Not even this, this last desperate attempt.

Chances are, it would fail and the two of them would die, but there was a slim chance that it might not. If the information he had slowly gathered over the last few vorns was correct then it shouldn't be that hard. All he had to do was wait a few more breams for a break in the rain and then he would make his move.

The mountains were dangerous places at night but he wouldn't be going through the mountains. At least, he wouldn't be going over them. The underground world of Cybertron was just as deadly as the surface, but at least there bots had honor.

Sure, it was a twisted kind of a honor, the honor that belonged to animals bent on killing each other, but it was honor all the same. It was honor that meant if he played his cards right he could walk himself out of Polyhex and find a life somewhere else for himself and the just turned youngling laying on the pillow behind him.

It was because of that secret behind him he'd been keeping for fifteen vorns that he was daring to do this now. Because he had refused to do what he probably should have done fifteen vorns ago when that damn high class client of his got him sparked.

Everybot he knew had warned him to get rid of it. Had told him what he already knew. That Senators didn't take kindly to blemishes on their name such as bastard sparklings from berth warmers. If they found out about them they not only killed the kindle, but the carrier as well.

If Masquerade had had a lick of sense he'd have done as his friends told him and snuffed the kindle when it was still just a cluster of energy floating around his spark. He'd have saved himself a whole lot of a lot of pain if he did. Between now trying to afford to feed and care for a sparkling after the pain that had came with all the complications of his birth he was at the end of his rope.

Masquerade had nearly died trying to bring that small silver thing behind him into the word. He didn't regret it, but it had made his life a thousand times harder. Scrambling to pay for the assistance he needed come his due date meant there had been nothing left to the dark mech's name to pay for the surgery he needed afterward with the problems the birth had caused him.

Small his little youngling might have turned out to be, but as unhealthy and underfed as Masquerade had been come his birth meant he had sustained quite a bit of damage to his internals trying to bring that little thing into this world. Which meant his job as a frag toy had gotten even more painful after all was said and done. Because he couldn't afford to fix his equipment.

He had gone on though.

He gone on because when he held that sticky little bundle of silver protoform in his hands for the first time he'd known he'd never be able to do anything other than want to give him whatever he could.

So he did, and now here he was.

Watching the rain fall while he tapped nervously at the window frame.

He'd never been very good at waiting. It wasn't in his nature.

The sound of a heavy knock on the poor excuse of a door across the room, had the slim built gold and silver mech twisting from the window. Soft blue optics glowing brighter than normal in the dim room. Those bright orbs narrowing at the sound, he stood there for a long moment waiting as no other sound followed the knock.

He had reason to be wary, with a secret like the one he carried now, but those that were sent to kill him for the lie he had told and for the life he hid behind him would not bother with knocking.

In fact, he only knew one bot this side of the tran tracks that bothered with knocking.

Pushing himself away from his leaning place clawed peds padded toward the door in near silence. His slight frame and vorns lately of getting good at staying hidden meant he had become very good at silence.

More so then most beings made of metal were capable of.

Reaching his door, he tapped the key lock with the tip of a claw signaling for the rusty slab of metal that might have once been painted black yet now was an off shade of ugly orange because of the rust eating through it to slide away. When in its place there was suddenly a tall, but slim grey mech with unnerving purple optics Masquerade couldn't help the annoyed snort and roll of his optics.

Shaking his helm, he turned away.

"Come now," The tall mech grumbled, behind him, the sound of his steps following as well as the door shutting behind him was expected, but that didn't mean Masquerade had to like it. "Is that any way to be treatin' an old friend."

"Friend?" The two tone mech stopped mid-way across the room, twisting back around to glare at the bot behind him. "Is that what ya want to call us now?"

Something Masquerade didn't want to bother with deciphering flashed through those unnerving purple optics as Custom pressed his lips into a thin line. "Don't ya be get snippy with meh, Masq."

"Oh?" Soft blue optics narrowing even more the two tone mech crossed the short distance between them until he was glaring up into the height difference between them. Neither of them were very bulky mechs, never had been, and fuel shortages made that an even more obvious fact. Custom had always been taller then the two tone though. The long sweeping sensors panels hanging from his back might be a mockery of wings in the fact that they would never offer him flight, but that didn't mean they didn't give him the height of some fliers. He'd never have the towering frame of a true airborne mech, but he was still a good bit taller than the slim racer frame.

Masquerade didn't care.

He never had.

After so long in the berths of big mechs, the instinctual weariness of them went away. One mech was as same as any other to Masquerade. He knew all too well small ones could hurt you just as bad as big ones could.

Monsters were not born of might.

Monsters were born of prospective.

"Don't get snippy?" The silver and gold mech went on in a low hiss. Mindful of the recharging youngling laid up in a mound of pillows in the corner that served as the mockery of his berth. "Ah don't have a right to be getting' snippy with ya? How is ya figurin' that one, Custom? Huh? Ah'd really like to know what could possibly be the reasonin' in that screwed up helm of ya's that would make ya think Ah don't have a right to be snippy with ya?"

He was answered by the tightening of a sharp jaw and silence.

He snorted.

Figured.

His line of works didn't make for very good friends. He and Custom had been standing the same corner for long enough that they begrudgingly watched each other's back from time to time, but things changed when the big grey mech caught sight of the swell in Masquerade's abdomen plating fifteen vorns ago.

It was a danger for anybot to be around the two tone now, and he knew it. He didn't fault his once sort of friends for making themselves scarce more often than not for him. For they were just as likely to be killed for the crime he was commenting as he was if it could be proven they knew.

If anything, Masquerade knew he owed Custom quite a lot. For he had had hung around through the hunger pains, the hard labor, and the messy cover up of afterward. He was still hear now, sneaking fuel rations to the two tone that he didn't dare ask where he got. It was Custom that got him in contact with the mechs under the surface in the first place.

He had helped Masquerade more than he ever had any obligation too.

But he wouldn't leave this slaggin' pit hole with him. He wouldn't make a run for it even if they both knew life was not going to be something that could be found here for much longer.

He was staying here, and Masq was loosing what he would have a few orns ago called his friend.

Now, he would not say such a thing. Even if that was admitting to how much it hurt him.

Shaking his helm the silver and gold mech looked away. Soft blue gaze drilling into the floor as he tried to settle down the ruffle his plating had worked itself into. Custom stood there the whole time watching him. Those eerie purple optics Masquerade had never truly gotten use to set on him before the shorter mech let out a tired breath.

"Never mind." He drawled, turning away from the other and heading back to the window to watch the rain. "It don't matter none."

"They're talkin' about ya." Custom said softly, as if the both of them already didn't know that fact.

"They been talkin' about meh for a long time. Ain't normal for a corner mech be turning down credits like that. They been talkin' about how crazy Ah is for vorns. Ain't nothin' knew."

"It is when they sayin' stuff about sparklin's."

Masquerade tensed up a little, gaze darting over to the slowly rising and falling pile of ragged blankets over in the corner of this damn cheap hole in the wall room. He watched his sparkling breathe for a few moments, chewing on his bottom lips before twisting back around to stare into those unnatural optics again.

"Ya knows Ah's leaving in a few breams." He hissed out quietly, wary of the words even in the so called safety of his own home. "Why did ya come to tell meh that? Did ya change ya mind about comin'?"

Shaking his helm, Custom looked away for a moment as if he was torn before he walked closer to the other again in order to keep both their voices down. He knew just as well as Masquerade did that the walls and shadows of this world had audios now. There was no safe place for a mech keeping secrets like Masq was.

Just as there was no safe places for those that kept it with him.

Custom knew that the slightly smaller mech, even after these last handful of vorns, still wondered why it was the grey mech helped him. Why he had helped through the carrying cycle, why he helped after the labor, why he still helped now that that little silver runt ran around and made noise.

And truthfully, Custom didn't have a good answer for him. That was why he never bothered with trying to give one.

Logically, the grey mech knew he shouldn't care. He knew he should have distance himself from the smaller one the moment those vorns ago when he'd notice what no bot else had. The weight the two tone was carrying that he had no right too.

He never would have told, those that were still around that came out of the south district of Polyhex would never dare snitch on each other. They might not be what they once were, but to each other they still saw what they had been. None of them would willingly send one of their own to death like that, but that didn't mean any of the rest were stupid enough to stick around a mech with such an obvious death wish.

Yet, here stood Custom.

If he could have come up with a decent reason, even to himself, he might have bothered to tell Masq at least once in the last fifteen vorns. He didn't though, so he didn't bother.

He just kept coming around. Handing half his energon ration to a mechling that was still too young to drink most of it, just because he liked the way those big blue optics glimmered at him when the young thing smiled.

Custom had turned into the thing Sentinel claimed there city was all along because now he had no choice, but he would never be a mech that would look down at a sparkling and wonder if it should be breathing. Just as he would never be a factor that would help lead to its death.

No matter how much risk that put him under.

There wasn't much left of Polyhex. Soon, if the damn Prime had his way, not only the coding line of their city's breed, but the city itself would be gone. Custom doubted it would ever even be a page in a history book after a few more hundred vorns.

After all, look what had been done to the Tribes.

If something didn't fit the way the Prime saw fit, he removed it from his sight. He had decided Polyhex was one of those things, so pretty soon there would be nothing left of any of them.

But that little mechling recharging over there on moldy pillows and rags for blankets was Polyhex by code. Inside him he carried the future for all of them. A chance that maybe some of it would not be for nothing. Maybe in him their breed would have hope of being remembered.

That was enough for Custom.

"Ya don't have time to wait that long." Those purple optics snapped back to blue as they both shifted their gazes away from the sparkling. "Ya must go now, if ya is gonna go at all."

Something akin to fear flashed through Masquerade's optics as they snapped back to his youngling for a moment before returning to the taller mech.

"Why does ya say that?"

"Because ya glitched code donator has sicked hounds on ya."

Now that look in those soft blue pools was easily read as fear, but neither had much time to dwell on it. Instead, Masquerade force a calming breath through his vents and went for the berth in the corner while he called over his shoulder.

"And is ya here to help?"

"Well Ah didn't come to gloat." Custom snapped back, turning away and heading for the meager pile of rations he knew the smaller mech had been stashing in the broken panel of one of the walls. "Just gather up that little bit, Ah'll help ya get as far as the lower district, after that ya is on ya own."

Masquerade didn't thank him, and Custom didn't expect it.

After all, that wasn't what this was about.

While the long, lean mech busied himself with gathering supplies across the room Masquerade went to the pile of old ratty pillows and rags of blankets. Kneeling down beside them with a soft smile on his lips that seemed odd in comparison to what was going on around them. The two tone mech couldn't help it though. There was a part of him that had never stopped smiling since his sparkling had first been put in his hands. No matter the pain and fear that had come since then because of it.

He didn't care.

That tiny smile and those big blue optics were worth it.

Reaching out with careful claws he shifted through the pile of blankets searching for a newly turned youngling as of twelve vorns old that always seemed to be burrowing under something. His carrier had never truly gotten that urge, but he did have to admit it was kind of, a little bit, extremely cute.

Just a tad.

Digging around through the blankets he soon found the still soft form of a just turned youngling. Humming quietly in the way the little mech liked him to as he flipped the blankets away to reveal big, bright blue optics blinking up at him from a small yawning face.

"Carrier." That sweet young voice chirped at him, smile rapidly spreading across his still round with youth cheeks. The simple sight of him and his warm voice enough to make the two tone mech grin like a fool. For a few moments forgetting just how much trouble he had found himself in because of this little thing.

It was an easy thing to do, believe it or not, when the creation bond in his chest started pouring out that love and admiration all sparklings seemed to have for their creators. His own spark, old, tired, and scared as it was quivered with joy at the feeling. Unable to dwell on just how bad things were likely to get before they ever had a hope of getting better.

He didn't care.

That tiny, tired smile was worth whatever pain came next.

He had managed to do something right with his life. No matter how useless the rest of Cybertron had deemed his existence. Here was one thing Masquerade had managed to get right.

Here was something he would never let himself regret.

"Hello, my little Jazz." He purred quietly down to the little bundle of silver that was trying to push himself up from his swarm of blankets. Between the rations Masquerade had been giving him the majority of alongside what the mech stole, and what Custom brought by they had managed to keep the little mech at a sort of decent weight. He went without a lot of needed supplements these first few vorns of his life, but Masquerade hoped he would be able to remedy that soon.

Once they got out of Polyhex it would be less suspicious for him to find supplies for his sparkling. Here, he had no right to have one, but out in the real world, if he could hide what he really was as well as where he was from he would seem no different than any other carrier out there.

It wouldn't damn him along with his mechling.

They would deserve a life. Outside of Polyhex the Senator that had left a kindle in Masquerade's chest didn't have a right to kill him and his sparkling for hiding the truth. Because apparently it was Masquerade's fault he had been bought and paid for over and over again by the same sick rich mech mated to somebot else and yet came to shareware to get his kicks. It was somehow Masquerade's fault that one of those many times the Senator left something behind.

It was the way of such things that Masquerade had been meant to get rid of it. To save himself his life and the Senator the embarrassment of a bastard sparkling by a frag toy.

Masquerade had broken that law though.

He had kept the sparkling, and now he had but one chance to save it.

The happy little bubble of sound that left the small youngling startled Masquerade pulling from his thoughts. Left again looking down at the small mechling wiggling his way out of his blankets to climb up into his carrier's arms.

Grinning brightly, his intelligent optics glittering in the dim light of the run down hotel room, he wiggled until he was perched in Masquerade's lap. Staring up into the silver faceplate streaked down his optics and along his cheeks with lines of painted gold of the only mech he had ever known to constantly be there. That burned warm in his chest with love and devotion.

"Well, well," A familiar voice called from across the room snapping Jazz's optics over his carrier's shoulder to find the long, lean grey shape and purple optics of Custom. "Has the sparkin' decided to join the real world?"

Jazz might only be considered a youngling now by three vorns, but he was older then twelve vorns thank you very much and he did not like being called a sparkling.

He was _not_ still a sparkling.

He was fifteen vorns old now.

He was a _youngling._

 _Not_ a sparkling.

Scrunching up his little face he pouted over his carrier's shoulder as Masquerade stood. Twisting around in the hands that were holding him to a warm, strong chest so that he could stick his tongue out at the chuckling bot walking up to them.

"Not a sparklin'!" He would deny his voice squeaked, but considering he was still learning the ins and outs of grown speech he figured he was allowed a little bit of squeak.

The sound or maybe the face he made seemed to amuse both the mechs around him. Custom chuckling deeply while Masquerade shook his helm fondly.

"Of course not, Jazz." His carrier purred to him, lightly stroking his stubby audio horns. "Ya're meh big, mechlin', aren't ya?"

Jazz preened under the attention, curling up close to his carrier's chest to take in the vibrating purr rumbling through him.

"Ah'll never get what ya named him Jazzmeister for if ya never gonna call him that." Custom let out an amused snort as he slipped a few supplies into Masquerade's subspace. The smaller mech overriding blocks and protocols to let him do it as he went about starting the transformation sequence to let his now fore arm length youngling back into place he got stuffed in far too much.

The truth of both their frames was that Jazz was now too old to be stuffed in Masquerade's spark vault. The squishy section of protoform forming a sort of box to the right of his spark chamber was where all sparklings spent a majority of their first twelve vorns with their carriers. With a direct length to the carrier's spark as well as the tubing assess point for the special sparking fuel carriers produced within themselves for their sparklings for their first twelve vorns was found there.

However, it was a forever safe haven.

Sparklings grew up, it was a fact of life, and that meant most no longer knew the safety and contentment of a spark vault after their twelfth vorn. They simply grew too fast, they no longer fit.

This was not always the case, some younglings were just smaller, but for Jazz it was.

When he hit twelve vorns he hit a growth spurt like he was supposed to and because of it he could no longer comfortably wiggle his way into Masquerade's vault. It was a fact that had made the two tone mech's life far more difficult over the last three vorns.

It had been easier to hide Jazz's existence when he spent the majority of his time hidden away in his carrier's chest. Masquerade knew it was only for that reason that he had been able to keep Jazz a secret as long as he had.

Trouble had only really started to breath down his neck over the last few vorns. When he had started having a harder time hiding Jazz. It wasn't practical to hide a sparkling in a rusty hotel room by himself for joors on end, but Masquerade had had little choice.

If anybot saw him with the youngling it wouldn't be long before they started to figure it out. He knew that was what in the end lead him to where he was now. One couldn't blame a youngling that had never known anything but trailing through shadows after his carrier and sitting alone in a dark room waiting for him to come back for trying to explore the world around him just once.

Masquerade wished it hadn't ended like it had, but now, all he could do was try and find a way to fix it.

"He's mine." The two tone mech, shrugged to the other. "Ah'll call him what Ah like."

Custom snorted again but said no more. Simply nodding as he lifted a hand to wiggle his fingers playfully in front of Jazz's optics. The silver youngling batted back at him. Giggling happily at the attention before he registered the thick panels of plating over his carrier's spark sliding away. Attention snapping down to the familiar sight of the safe, warm place just to the side of the stronger chamber of his carrier's spark.

Confused, those bright blue optics lifted to find the deeper shade of his carrier's. Audio horn tipped helm tilting in question. He didn't understand, wasn't he too big to go back in the vault?

"Carrier?" He asked.

"Won't be for long, meh mechlin'." Masquerade told him. "We is gonna go on a trip and then we is gonna live somewhere else. Somewhere ya don't have to hide. Sound like a plan, meh lil' Jazz?"

"Can go outside?" Jazz perked up happily. Optics flashing with excitement at the idea of it.

It both made Masquerade happy and sad all in the same nano. Swallowing it down he went about getting the mechling tucked away in a vault now too small for him. It wasn't comfortable for the either of them but after a few moments he was able to slide the panels of his chest shut leaving him staring up at the grey mech before him.

"Runnin' out of time." Custom said quietly.

Oh, how Masquerade knew.

He knew all too well.

* * *

The acid rain pelted the world outside in metal melting streams was nothing to play at. For a full grown bot it was not deadly unless they were exposed too it without shelter for long periods of time. Almost all creatures of Cybertron had evolved over the billions of vorns to be able to handle the climate of the world around them. It was mostly the young of their world that were at risk.

Deep inside Masquerade's vault Jazz was safe from the rain, but that didn't mean his carrier was pleased with the stinging slag pounding down around him as he hurried through the back allies of what once was his beautiful home.

For a fully grown mech decked out in hard plating and armor meant that the rain was more annoyance then pain for short periods of time that the two mechs where slipping out of shadows and through the downpour. Prickly, and itchy, and stinging when it dripped down to protoform hidden underneath, but harmless in short bursts.

Masquerade wasn't afraid of the rain as he and Custom slipped stealthily through the shadows like only creatures that knew them well could do. He was afraid of what was lurking out there in it.

Custom wouldn't have come to find him, to say the things he did, if things hadn't gotten bad over the last three orns the two tone mech had hidden himself away with his mechling waiting for the right time. He did not doubt the tall mech walking quietly along beside him. Bright purple optics searching through dark overhangs and allies as they went along. Waiting for what they both hoped they wouldn't meet, but both knew sooner or later was likely to find them.

If Masquerade could make it to the lower district without getting spotted it would be a miracle. That was another reason he was grateful of the larger shape at his side. Neither of them were fighters, but far too many bots underestimated the lengths a carrier would go to protect their sparkling. Custom didn't have the instinct or the drive that Masquerade was running on currently, but if he wasn't willing to at least throw a punch he wouldn't have come along.

He wouldn't be following the carrier for much longer though. It wasn't his gamble to take to the degree it was Masquerade's. Even if the silver and gold mech never really had figured out why that was.

Custom was smart enough to see the signs.

He was aware of what was coming, but he wouldn't leave.

The answer was simple to the grey mech though. Polyhex was his home. He was born here, and he would die here. It was just the way he was.

He knew death was the only thing left from here, but he had excepted it. His pride would be the death of him, but at least he would be one the Prime hadn't driven from this once wonderful place. Even if it had become nothing but a tomb.

Ped steps light for their size the two mechs carefully wound their way down through the soggy streets. Winding their way deeper and deeper through the darkness. Being built on the sides of two mountains dipping low into the valley between Polyhex had once been made up of three distinct districts that were then subsection into townships. The High District as it had once been known as the height of their city's society, standing tall on the side of the mountains. Then there had been the Middle District where the majority of the population and common bots had lived, worked, and thrived. The Lower District hadn't been very different from the Middle, the only real changes between them being more of the youth had taken to the lower levels of the city for the mischief that could be found in the bars, clubs, and such. Polyhex had been a city built on the imagination and drive of all those inside of it, it was in this breed's nature to seek out what others called trouble and cultivate it into something beautiful.

However, all that was gone now.

Only the High District, now ruled by the Senators and their guards sent in by the Prime was lit anymore. The rest of Polyhex had long gone dark by the time the sun set, the only life to be found here now carved out in hard ways. The playful mischief once found here now turned into a deadly game of appeasing those that wanted them all gone for as long as they could.

Bright blue optics gleamed through the darkness as Masquerade worked his way through the back allies, mindful of the noise leaking from clusters of bots found milling about the still somewhat working establishments of the city. Nothing good awaited him there.

Not now.

The bots he was looking for were even further down, and far more dangerous, but oddly enough, worth the risks.

Another alley, another pause by a wall, and then another hurried dash through the pounding rain until they reached the next overhang of shadow, and then, shaking off the droplets from his armor Masquerade turned his optics up to find those purple ones. Already knowing the look to be found there he simply nodded, dipped his helm, and turned away.

"Thanks, Custom." He said quietly, unsure he would get a reply but content in a way he hadn't expected when he got one.

"Take care of ya self, Masquerade."

"Back atcha." The smaller mech called in reply before he vanished into the shadows.

The two would never see each other again after that, not that either of them knew that in that moment, but time had a funny way of connecting some dots in different ways most wouldn't expect as it went on. Those bright blue optics that belonged to both carrier and sparkling vanishing now in the darkness that one would never emerge from again and the other would not learn how to leave for a very long time after that, it would not be the last time Custom saw that shade of blue in his life though.

However, that would not be for quite a long time.

The grey mech stood there in the shadow of a crumbling building watching the place where the other had vanished for a lot time after that. Not caring about the rain pelting down around him as he stood there. He felt uneasy in a way he wasn't use too, but there was nothing to be done about any of that now.

Masquerade had made his choice vorns ago, and there was nothing anybot but him could do about it now.

"Good luck, meh friend." He muttered to the growing darkness around him while he turned and headed back the way he had come. "Ya is gonna need it."

As Custom retreated for home he failed to notice the shapes looming out of the blackness of the building. He never saw the gleam of rain on the Guard insignias of polished armor, or the leers to be found in a dozen sets of blue optics.

He wouldn't know what happened to his friend who would never call him friend, not until it was already too late to help him.

* * *

Masquerade hardly made it another seven blocks after he parted ways with Custom before he heard them.

Laughter echoing off the wet stone and metal structures surrounding him. A sound that stilled his spark in his chest, making him spin on his heels half way down a deserted street just a few hundred or so measly yards from the place he was looking for. Audios heightening as much as he could crank them the two tone mech darted his gaze around the wet darkness surrounding him. Trying to track the echoing sounds of many mechs' dark chuckles.

It seemed to be coming from everywhere.

The eerie echo bouncing back at him from all around. Amplified by stone and dark, leaving his breath short in his vents and his spark sinking in his chest.

He was so close.

 _So damn close_!

His jaw tightened as he felt the too cramped weight in his chest shift uneasily beside his spark. A short flash of fear passed through him via his sparkbond with Jazz. The youngling's confusion and fear at his carrier's emotions making him wiggle and twist. Scared suddenly even in the safest place he had ever known.

The silver and gold mech's resolve hardening in his chest.

 _No._

No, he hadn't worked this hard for this long to come up short now.

Spinning away he took off as fast as his peds would carry him. He couldn't transform with a youngling as big as Jazz in his vault, but in the rain and tight allies this deep into the valley there wasn't enough room anyway. If he was damn lucky, he might not have to.

So, he did the only thing he could do.

He ran.

As fast as his peds would carry him he slid and skidded through the night. Peds slapping hard against the cold pavement under them. His systems red lining on low fuel and lack of recharge but he ran all the same.

Trying to ignore the spikes of fear flashing through his youngling as he threw every thing he had into reaching the meeting point he had paid every credit to his name to have some big mech he knew he couldn't trust met him at so that he could be allowed down into the underground network of tunnels that ran throughout Cybertron. The place where the hidden dark world of Cybertron thrived on even under the Prime's rule.

Because monsters were hard to catch, let alone cage. Always had been, that was on law of the universe that not even the Prime could make bend to his will.

He knew the sound of his running would have spurred the ones behind him on, and he was in no way surprised when he heard curses leading to the sound of big, bulky frames running but their employer had failed to take one thing into consideration when he hired them it seemed.

Masquerade was a racing build, and even on his peds and running on low fuel he could outpace them with ease.

Running despite the struggling of his vents, he tossed himself around one less corner, skidding to a stop on the other side of a dead-end street. What he found there made his spark slide to a painful stop, his optics widening, and his processor locking up in denial for a long few nanos. Blinking in confusion he let himself look this way and that. Desperately searching for something he already realized wasn't there.

Because he'd given his last hope in faith of an animalistic honor that might just save him and his son.

Standing there now alone on a dead-end street in the pelting acid rain as death closed in behind him he realized how foolish that had been, but the last-ditch efforts were very rarely planned out well.

Swallowing hard, he forced himself to breathe.

To think.

He'd been had, that much was obvious now, and he was about to pay with it for his life, but that didn't mean Jazz had to.

Not if he could help it.

Gaze darting around him, he almost passed over it only to flick his optics back.

A scrap bin.

Not big, but that might be a good thing. It was big enough to hide Jazz but small enough that it might go unnoticed.

It was a shot in the dark, and Masquerade knew it all too well, but now it was the only chance he had.

Darting forward as the sound of heavy ped steps got closer and closer behind him. Masquerade scrambled with the lid of the bin. Pulling it off and dropping it to the side all while the keyed up the command code in his processor to crack his chest plating and open his vault. With enough fear coursing through not only his spark but what was coming off his scared youngling as well he had to override the damn failsafe's protocols six times before it would let him complete the command.

Wasted time that would cost him, but he didn't had time to worry about that. He probably never would now. Instead, he reached into his vault with shaking hands, wrapping tight claws around Jazz to pull him out quickly.

The wiggling mass of silver and big blue optics was still pulsing confusion and fear at him. Something that only got worse when Masquerade didn't bring him to his chest like all the other times the young mech had ever felt fear before. Instead, he was forced to drop the little mech into the piles of scrap piled in the dirty bin.

"Carrier?" Jazz squeaked in fear, optics wide as he found himself dropped into the scrap. His little spark hammering away in his chest, as he tried to move in the shifting piles of broke metal and various other things he didn't really want to know what were. He kept sliding back down in the piles, but with sharp claws he still tried to wiggle his way back to the top of the bin. All his trying was for not though when his carrier's hand came down atop his helm. The large palm shoving him carefully but forcibly deeper into the piles of trash despite his squeaks of protest. "Carrier!"

"Hush, Jazz!" Masquerade hissed, voice breaking with the emotions swirling inside him.

Jazz ignored the command. Fighting as hard as young muscle cabling could against the shoving so that he could get back up to his carrier. Because something was wrong. Something was very, _very_ wrong. He wasn't sure what but his carrier was afraid and that was making Jazz afraid.

He didn't want to be afraid.

He didn't want to be doing this anymore.

Outside wasn't worth the fear in the bond linking him to his carrier. They could just go back home. He would stay in the room and be good if it meant his carrier would stop being afraid now.

"Jazzmeister!" The whispered hiss froze the small silver mechling in his scramble. His gaze darting up to find the same shade reflected back at him in his carrier's optics. Because his carrier never called him by his full name. Not unless he had done something very wrong.

He stilled out of instinct.

Unsure, and fearful, but still all the same. Just laying there in a pile of scrap looking up at his carrier for some kind of answer to what was happening to them because he didn't _understand._

Masquerade stood bent over the bin, his hands propping him up on the side of it, as he tried to breathe through the lump in his throat. Standing there staring down at the wide, scared optics of his youngling he forced himself to suck in a deep breath. Freeing one shaking hand from the side of the bin he reached down. Cupping the side of a smoothly angled silver cheek, he ran his thumb lightly over a small noseplate and under a bright optic.

Taking in every detail he knew by spark one more time, for as the sounds grew louder behind him he knew it would be the last time. Forcing the emotions swirling through his spark back so they wouldn't filter through their bond he tried to keep his voice level with what he spoke next.

"Listen to meh very carefully, mechlin'." He started, optics searching the young ones shining back at him. Trying to make a processor far too young to have to understand this do what it shouldn't have to. "Ah need ya ta stay here. Ya ain't gonna make a sound. No matter what ya here, ya understand me? Ya is gonna stay here and ya is gonna stay quiet until ya don't hear nothin' else at all. And then, when ya don't hear nothin' else, Ah want ya to climb out and Ah want ya to run. Don't ya look back. Ya just run. Do ya understand meh, meh mechlin'? Tell me ya understand."

Jazz didn't understand.

Not really, but his carrier looked so afraid and felt like he so badly wanted Jazz to get it.

So, he nodded.

Slowly, with his optics still full of confusion, but he nodded all the same.

"Okay, Carrier." He whispered. "Okay. But where ya gonna be?"

Pain flashed though Masquerade's optics and for a moment he didn't answer. Then, taking a deep breath he patted Jazz's cheek one last time before pulling away.

"Ah loves ya, ya lil' mech. Ah loves ya like I ain't never loved nothin' else. Don't ya ever forget that. Ya hear me? Never."

Then he was moving away, picking up the scrap bin lip and setting it on top of the bin. He didn't push it down to lock it though. Instead, just balancing it there atop the bin so that it could be easily pushed aside from the inside by little arms.

"Carrier?" Jazz asked, fear clouding his voice as darkness enclosed him.

"Not a sound, mechlin'. Not a sound."

Then, Masquerade moved away, snapping his chest panels back closed. Heading back to the mouth of the alley just in time to watch a dozen large shapes loom out of the darkness.

For a moment, none of them did anything.

The huge grounder frames Masquerade found himself flicking his gaze over were heaving deep vents that any other time he would have made fun of. Slaggin' slick plated fools. So spoiled in their high class lives they can't even run to keep up with a half starved racer.

This is what the Prime had done to their world, and now Masquerade would die for it.

Something in him resented that fact more then he figured it should. Angry and hurt about how one mech could destroy so many lives. How he would keep on doing this and so much worse because no bot with any power seemed to care.

What were the common to them?

They had credits, and power, and everything they could ever need. No matter that it was all built on the backs of starving, underpaid miners in Kaon. No matter if they had wiped the deserts clean of the tribes and every ounce of their culture because they hadn't liked it. No matter that they were in the process of slowly destroying an entire city and the breed of bot that called it home simply because they thought they were all little better then shareware in the first place.

And no bot cared.

They looked the other way, they pretended not to know, and hundreds of thousands were now gone because of it.

Gone and no bot would bother to remember them.

Masquerade was about to become one of them too, but he'd be damned if he went down without a fight.

Pulling up the best smirk he owned, the two tone racer tipped his helm back so that he could stare into the optics looking down at him from all angles. There was no where left to run, so he didn't bother trying. Instead, he just grinned.

"Evenin' there, mechs." He drawled, claws flexing at his side as he barred his few fangs in a mockery of a smile. He had no chance. He knew that, but that wasn't going to stop him. "Whatcha doin' round this side a town?"

The biggest one among them, some high bred looking bastard with glittering blue optics, obnoxious yellow paint, and the build of a truck stepped forward from the line of frames blocking the two town mech in the dead-end alley. It took everything inside Masquerade not to back away from the predator like approach of the dangerously sneering mech as that huge gate carried him closer.

 _Wait for it._ He told himself, claws clenching at his side. _Just wait for it._

"You know why we're here you gutter talking, piece of scrap." He was so very obviously the self-appointed leader of this hit team Masquerade forced himself not to roll his optics.

High bred fool.

He'd never know what hit him.

"Ya ain't mocking meh accent now is ya, mech?" The two tone drawled right back, watching each swaying step as it brought the mech closer, and closer, and closer. The other mechs were closing in behind him. Dark chuckles and leering looks more then enough to tell Masquerade what he already knew.

His words earned a laugh that apparently meant what he said or how he said it was funny. Masquerade didn't care. The mocking of the way Polyhex born bots talked was where it all began to start with.

They weren't _refined_.

They weren't _dignified_.

They weren't _civilized_.

They sounded too much like the Tribes of the Desert once had and because of it they were all sentenced to death. Maybe not in the way of full out war like the Tribes had fallen, but at least those bots had had the honor of going down fighting. Polyhex was being poisoned from the inside until there was nothing left of any of them.

There was no honor in that.

Masquerade had grown use it over the last hundred or so vorns, it no longer made him flinch or bite his tongue in shame. That didn't mean he hadn't been harboring the desire to do what he planned next for a very long time though.

"Gutter scrap." The huge mech attempted to drawl the words like Masquerade did natural in an attempt to go right on mocking him. He sounded downright ridiculous though and the two tone mech was forced to hold back a chuckle as the towering mech finally brought himself within striking range.

Big, and bulky, he didn't have a fear in the world that Masquerade might do something _besides_ stand there and weight for his death to be given to them.

And that was the last mistake he would ever make.

"You know why we're here." The big mech sneered down at him. "You should have gotten rid of it before the Senator found out, because now you're both going to die."

Rage boiled up from the bottom of Masquerade's spark. Curling his lips and tightening his claws as finally the mech was close enough.

"He's not a _it_!"

He lunged.

Throwing his weight forward in a leap of claws springing off of pavement he crashed into the huge mech who never saw it coming. On his own, Masquerade would have never weighed enough to bring a mech of this sized to his knees, but with the element of surprise on his side and intricate knowledge of just what made a frame tick he did.

Crashing into his chest was enough to send the huge yellow mech off balance. His ped claws digging deeply into the mech's hips, slipping down between plating to pierce the protoform and delicate wiring underneath, was enough to tear a pained cry from him and knock him into a hard fall to his knees. All Masquerade had to do after that was pitch his weight upward, and dig his claws deep into the mech's throat. One good, hard yank and energon went flying.

Gushing out over the top of Masquerade's helm in a river of boiling blue as the short scream the mech had been able to make at the first feel of pain was cut off when his vocal processor, his jugular, and his main strut relay came away all in one yank. His life ended in one simple tear and a splatter of energon.

For a short nano Masquerade relished in that small victory, but it was all of one he had.

Large, strong, hard hands closed in on him from every angle then. Tearing him away from the rapidly greying frame as it pitched sideways to crash lifelessly to the ground. Masquerade didn't take his optics off of it, not until he could no longer keep his optics open.

It wasn't much, it made him a murderer in his last few moments of life, but it did fill him with a sick sort of satisfaction that at least he had taken one of these glitches with him.

What happened next was truly horrifying.

Standing in the mouth of the alley a young Guard mech, hardly old enough to be wearing the insignia on his shoulder, stood trembling on his thin legs as he watched the happenings through wide optics.

He hadn't actually known what their mission tonight would be. No one bothered to tell rookies such things. He was to keep his mouth shut and do as he told. If he managed to pull that off and not get himself killed in the progress he would be just fine.

That was what he had been told in his first mission debriefing at least.

Now . . . now he wasn't so sure.

Because he hadn't signed up for this.

He hadn't signed up to be sicked like a hound on a carrier for not getting rid of a bastard sparkling. He hadn't signed up to chase a mech through the rain in the middle of the night to corner him in an alley. He hadn't signed up to interrogate him on the whereabouts of his secret sparkling and then start ripping him to pieces when he wouldn't give the desired answer.

He hadn't signed up to rape bots.

Squeezing his optics shut the young mech turned away from the chaos going on at the end of the alley. Trying to ignore the horrible sounds that were echoing around the darkness and the falling rain. None of the other Guards had seemed to realize he wasn't joining in.

He was grateful for that even as he stood there trying not to purge up everything inside his tanks at the sounds, smells, and sights. Forcing himself to turn so that he was staring at one of the alley walls and not the end of it he told himself that he had to stand there. If he ran away he would likely be whipped for insubordination when the others were . . . _finished._

So, he stood there.

Desperately trying to ignore what was happening behind him because he knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was while he was doing that that he saw the scrap bin sitting almost unnoticeable in the shadows of the wall he was looking at wiggle.

For a klick, he stared at it.

Confusion making him blink stupidly at it because . . . he hadn't just seen a scrap bin _wiggle_ had he?

No.

No, he couldn't have.

His processor was making things up trying to deal with the stress he was under. That was what it was, yeah. That was it.

Then the damn thing wiggled again and he about fell on his aft in shock.

He then proceeded to stare at it for longer then was probably needed before he realized what he was looking at.

 _Oh._ He whispered to himself. _That's where it is._

Tanks twisting at the realization he darted his gaze over to the debauchery happening at the end of the alley before turning away and darting forward. There was no point in trying to hide what he was doing. The others were too _busy_ to notice.

Scrambling over to the bin he pulled the lid away. Tossing it behind him while he found himself staring down at the tear streaked faceplate of what couldn't be much older than a sparkling. The little thing was big enough to be a youngling, but that mattered little in the few short nanos in which the two stared at each other.

Another horrible sound echoed from down the alley and the young guard made his choice. Quick as a snake he reached down into the bin, yanked out the youngling and tossed him down the cold, wet, dark alley.

The little thing landed in a bundle of limbs hard on the pavement. Skidding across the ground a few long feet until he managed to find his peds again. The Guard went after him, trying to block the view of what was happening at the mouth of the alley. There was little he could do though. So instead he swiped at the little mech as he hurriedly tried to get his peds under him.

"Go!" The Guard hissed, leaving Jazz standing there with wide optics. Tears streaking down his faceplate as the pulsing ball of life in his chest proceeded to crack in half. He was a tad too young to understand everything he was seeing and hearing, Masquerade had done well to shelter him as best he could down here in this city going to pit, but that didn't mean he couldn't _feel_ the agony flaring through his carrier's spark. His carrier who was dying.

 _Carrier!_

His spark was screaming inside his chest but nothing he sent the other's way was being received.

And then, the tall, lanky, green mech he'd never seen before was swiping at him with dull fingers. Sending him scrambling backward even as the mech glanced over his shoulder, desperately almost before fixing Jazz in a wide blue scare again.

"Go! Get out of here! Run, if you know what is good for you, and don't you dare look back! Run!"

That was what his carrier had told him to do. That was what every instinct inside of him was screaming at him to do.

And so, at fifteen vorns old with his spark cracking in half in his chest, Jazz turned his back on the only bot he had ever known to care as he felt that bot's life slowly slip out of existence and ran for his life.

* * *

Thunder crashed and lightening lit the dark night around him an electric kind of purple as one tiny silver mechling huddled in on himself behind a pile of scrap around the back of a bar. Rain still pelted down as it seemed to always do during the Fire Storms leaving a youngling still covered in nothing but protoform aching, burning, and itching.

Jazz had managed to find himself a tucked away hideaway over the last few orns. At least here, buried under all these tossed aside hunks of metal he could stay out of most of the rain. For a little while at least.

The problem with the hastily scrambled together plan was that Jazz had to leave his makeshift shelter to find something to eat, and the rain, well that wasn't going to let up for another two decacycles at least. This far north the storms didn't last as long as they did in other places, but they still stretched on for a long while.

Long enough that the shivering youngling, currently picking at the thick lines of burns from the rain running down his left arm would starve if he didn't venture out into them to find something to eat.

Going home hadn't proven a smart idea.

When he had felt the last of his creator's bond with him shatter three nights ago he had been stumbling his way through the dark streets trying to stay out of the pouring rain. The all-encompassing agony that had come after that had left him unconscious in a doorway for the rest of the night. He'd been awoken by a stiff kick to the gut that sent him sprawling and then fleeing from the angry shouts of whoever it was that had owned that doorway.

As he'd run he'd become aware of not only the pain blooming to life in his side from the kick, but also the deep aching burns the acid rain had left in his protoform. His entire left side from his shoulder down to his thigh was badly burned. Thin lines cut through his silver hide by the rain that had run down it while he lay dead to the world. Stinging with every movement he made now. He was pretty sure most of his rib struts in his right side were broken as well.

Breathing now hurt more then it helped, and left him staggering over to catch his breath more often than not.

He hadn't been able to run much further then he ended up now. Hidden away behind his pile of scrap he nursed his wounds like a beaten turbo pup.

His tears had not lasted more than an orn. For it hadn't taken the young mech long to figure out crying wasn't going to save him. No bot was coming to help him and the noise of his cries only brought unwanted attention.

No bot had any use for a skinny, injured, gutter rat of a sparkling. He found that out very quick from the insults they hissed at him as he fled them. They all had their own problems, they didn't have any time to waste on him.

So when Jazz finally found a place mostly out of the rain and out of sight he tucked himself away to wait for his self-repair systems to try and do their job. At such a young age he didn't have much to work with, but it was at least enough that if he held very still for an orn or so his repair nanites might be able to patch up his broken ribs before splitters of them damaged something else.

By the fourth orn after his carrier died he was able to stand up again, but he was running so low of fuel that wasn't a fact that would remain that way for very much longer.

The little mech was smarter than most gave him credit for though it seemed. He knew better then to blindly rush back out into the rain in search of something to eat. That would only hurt him worse in the long run.

So he waited.

Tanks gnawing on themselves in hunger, helm aching from it, and protoform still sticking from his burns he waited and he listened for the moment he dared peak his helm out. It took another joor in coming but arrive it did and like the lash of lightening across the darkened skies over Polyhex Jazz moved.

Running quickly, but carefully—mindful of both his wounds and what might be watching—the young mech stuck close to the edges of buildings. Avoiding as many puddles and still falling drops as he could. Lull in the storm there might be but that did not mean it stopped and there was no telling when it would pick up again.

He would have to be quick because it was unlikely he would find himself with another chance.

From his place hidden away in the scrap he had been watching bots come and go or a few orns now. He knew there was a bar just down the way. It was big, and crowded, and likely to get him into trouble, but it was the only shot he had.

Besides, it wasn't like Jazz was going to be stupid enough to go in the front door.

Peaking around the slick stone wall of the back of the bar Jazz watched through dimmed optics as a large grey mech tossed a cluster of broken cubes from the back door of the loud, crowded bar. It was one of the only places left around here that was still open, making it one of the only places left to get in out of the rain.

There would be no shelter to be found inside for Jazz, but he wasn't interested in the shelter it had to offer.

What he was interested in was the pile of broken glass laying in a heap just outside the doorway.

Biting back the hunger driving him forward Jazz waited another handful of klicks after the door swung shut behind the mech before he dared step out from his hiding place. Carefully, he edged around the building, optics fixed on the door that had closed behind the mech.

Then in a flash he moved.

Hurrying down the short little alley until he fell to his knees in the pile of glass. Small hands with sharp claws shifting through the broken cluster searching for what he hoped would be there.

"Yea'!" The quiet cheer left him as he snagged a more or less still together cube with a swirling purple liquid inside. Lifting it to him Jazz gave it a careful sniff before pulling away with a hiss.

 _Gah!_

"Highgrade." He muttered, sinking down a little in sadness only for his tanks to give a loud growl. Informing him that they didn't much care if it was fuel too rich for him to actually drink. He had to have something, or he wasn't going to have to worry about finding anything else later.

Noseplate scrunching up in distaste he forced himself to set his lips to the side of the broken cube that wasn't jagged and take a hesitant sip.

As he figured the nasty stuff burned the whole way down and made his tanks clench in on themselves when they got there, but after a few moments of trying not to gag it all right back up his internal fuel gage picked up slightly.

Huh.

He supposed desperation was good for something.

Greedily he went to chugging down the rest. Going so far as to lick the inside as best could. Once that one was licked clean he dropped it. Not caring about letting it shatter while he went to digging through the rest of them.

He came up with about five cubs. Each of different levels of fuel still inside of them, each one tasting nastier then the next, but he hadn't purged yet so he was counting that as a win. Focused as he was on drinking as much as he could as fast as he could the small silver youngling balanced on the balls of his clawed peds there in the drizzle, failed to notice the back door of the club swinging open again.

"Hey! Whatcha think ya is doin' ya little rat!?"

Jazz didn't see the first kick coming.

One nano he was sitting there licking at the edge of a thrown away cube and next he was slamming into the ground beside the broken pile of glass.

His breath rushed out of him in a whoosh. A pathetic squeak following it, even as he rolled on impact. Scrambling back to his peds while he threw his gaze up just in time to get slapped in the faceplate.

This hit sent him reeling as well. Tipping over his own weight and landing hard into a puddle that sent a whole other kind of fire like agony across him. This time a cry was torn from him. One that he tried to suck in and couldn't. Optics squeezing shut with it for a nano or two until his processor kicked back in and oh so politely informed him he needed to get his tiny little aft _out of the damn puddle and run_!

Bright blue optics snapping open again he rolled once more. Just missing the hard stomp of a ped that had been aiming for his helm.

"Ah don't feed strays! Ya don't pay ya don't eat!" The big green mech was raging. Chasing after Jazz even as the mechling rapidly found his peds again. Trying to dart around the swinging arms and stomping peds only to get hit in the side again and sent crashing into the pile of glass.

Several pieces buried deep tearing another grasped cry from the youngling. His hands clenching around shards of broken glass. Trying to ignore the pain, he rolled again, coming up to his peds again, throwing his gaze up watching as the big green mech bore down on him. Optics distorted and hazy the way only CN made bots look.

He was high.

And he was pissed.

 _Pit!_

Tossing himself to the side he just managed to avoid the next grab. Trying to make a break around the mech's thick legs only to find himself collared and swung up off the ground.

At the time, Jazz didn't know how he pulled it off. Some hundreds of vorns later, when he lived by a different name as a different thing, he'd brag around how he planned it. But the truth of the matter was that it had been an accident.

One moment he was being pulled close to a snarling faceplate and the next he was landing on his aft, staring at the sight of a huge frame falling to his knees in front of him. The huge hands that had just been clutched around the back of his neck now grasping weakly at the mech's on throat. A throat that had been sliced open in a thick, jagged, ugly line. Energon now gushing down over neck cabling and plating as the mech's life rushed out of him with a wave of boiling blue in a matter of breaths.

Jazz watched, though shock widened optics as the huge mech gurgled and gasped for a few nanos more before the light faded out of his optics and the big frame keeled over. Landing with a loud bang into a puddle of acid rain.

Shaking slightly Jazz just sat there for a long kick staring at the dead frame. Spark a cold ball of fear and shock in his chest until slowly the young mechling managed to glance down to find the still dripping energon shard of glass clutched tightly in his hand.

He felt slightly sick, but he'd gone to too much trouble to purge it all back up now. So he forced himself to swallow back the bile rising on the back of his tongue as he shakily got to his peds. Stumbling more then he thought might be normal he slowly backed away from the dead mech until he heard the crunch of glass behind him. Spinning around fearfully, he glanced every direction until _down_ registered in his mind. Letting his optics fall he saw he was standing in the pile of broken cube again, and that there was another one still with a little energon left in it.

He blinked.

Spark cold in his chest, but processor gifting him with a blunt kind of logic.

Bending down, he plucked up the last cube with his free hand, and then with his glass shard knife still held tight in his other the young mech stumbled away to return to his shelter. Melting back into the shadows that would become his home for vorns and vorns to come.

That was the first night Jazz spilled energon, the first time he killed. At the ripe young age of fifteen vorns the mechling his carrier had named Jazzmeister and called Jazz became something else. Something that soon forgot anything but shadows until he became something and some bot very different from the scared youngling that had huddled in fear of the rain.

And all that was a long, _long_ time ago.

* * *

 **And so the tale begins.**

 **Well, what did you think? I always look forward to what you all have to say. Tiny Jazz was cute wasn't he? Polyhex was also a fun place to play with. As is this time period in this series' universe. We're going to cover a lot of ground with this story and a lot of bots. You will be seeing much more then just Jazz as we go along I assure you. WOWL (as some of you probably know) is about what happens after the end of the war, this story is about how it started and all the things it caused before it was finished. You'll be seeing quite a few origin stories so to speak as this one goes along. Both Decepticon and Autobot alike.**

 **So if you liked it and you are excited for more please let me know! I'm planning to try and update this one just like I do GG and WOWL. So check in on Sundays to see if I've got anything done because that's when the updates will show up.**

 **Thank you for reading and hopefully reviewing! I'll see you all next chapter!**

 **-Jaycee**

 **P.S. Until I figured out something different I will be using WOWL's tumblr blog to post update links, fun things, and to let you guys play with the character's if you like. The link to it is on my profile if any of you new readers are interested in checking it out.**


	2. Dripping Claws

**Disclaimer** **: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.**

 **Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing! I'm so happy you've decided to give this story a shot. I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 1

Dripping Claws

What is it about darkness that scares bots so much?

It was a question that had plagued him all of his life. What he can remember of it anyway. For he's never understood it.

This fear others have.

He's watched them though the vorns, you know. Because hunting is just as much about watching as it is action.

He's crouched unknown and unnoticed feet away from a life he could snuff as easily as snapping his fingers and simply watched. Watched the way them all shy away from lingering shadows. How they scurry like glitch-mice for a source of light.

They run scared from the shadows even when they don't know there really _is_ something in them.

It's something that doesn't make since to him.

For as long as he can remember he's been at home in the dark. Shadows meant safety in a way light never could. Darkness wrapped him up like an old familiar friend—if he had any of those—and welcomed him back in with open arms every time he wished for it. In the dark he vanished. In the dark, he _thrived._

He had never feared it.

At least, maybe not after he had become a part of it.

He could wrap his mind around that concept. Of _that_ being the reason others feared the dark, but in all his seven hundred vorns of rather comical existence he'd never got why so many ran from the shadows into the arms of the light.

Didn't they know what lurked out there was no better?

Couldn't they _see_ it.

He could see it just fine.

Because he was a creature of darkness, and as such he knew that monsters were not confined to shadows.

They could walk in the sunlight just as easily as everything else. Hiding in plain sight. It was just they preferred the way prey shook, optics wide, sparks pounding as they searched desperately for the source of death stalking them where they couldn't see.

Fear smelt very good, believe it or not, after you smelt it enough.

However, fear mixed with _dark_.

Well that was just it all the more fun, now didn't it?

Things got more intense in the dark. Every sense working overtime to try and make up for the lack of one. Adrenalin pounding through tubing and cabling driving the fight and flight instinct that dominated all animals. No matter how seemingly advanced they might be.

For all the Cybertronian race's advancement and technologies at the end of the orn they were still all just animals. Some skittish of the dark and some at home in it. The ones that were going to survive, well if anybot had bothered to ask Meister—maybe before he killed them—he'd have no problem answering that shadows lived longer then light.

* * *

The audio shattering scream made the two dark audio horns atop the shadow colored mech's helm tilt back in an effort to try and relieve him of some of the pathetic sound, but considering he had to be standing pretty close in order to be pealing back strips of protoform from strut there wasn't much to do but sigh about that.

Still, that screaming was becoming awful annoying.

"Hey now," He drawled, leaning forward around the struggling mass of what was probably supposed to be an attractive shade of red. Personally, Meister thought it was kind of ugly. "Can ya knock of ya caterwauling? Ah's tryin' to work here."

His answer was another, longer, _louder_ sob filled scream as the horribly red colored fool tried to desperately shake himself loose from the coil of chain that had him hanging from the ceiling.

Meister stared in response.

Bright blue optics hidden behind the gleam of a red visor while the black mech stood there with his arms crossed over his chest just out of kicking range from the dangling frame in front of him.

"Ya know," He drawled, angular faceplate smoothing out into a wicked smirk. "Meh last client was much more agreeable then ya's bein'."

The red mech just let out another sob filled cry. Twisting back and forth as much as he could on dislocated arms hanging from a support beam of his ceiling. Both his legs were broken but that didn't mean he could weakly kick back and forth.

Not enough to hurt, but well, it was the principle of the issue.

He was a professional.

He didn't get _kicked_ by wanna be black market dealers.

As he leaned back away from the limply kicking mech he lifted an optic ridge over the rim of his visor. Clicking his tongue against his teeth while he lifted a hand to pick at the energon staining his claws. It was still sticky, rolling in warm streams down from his claw tips, seeping into the joints of his knuckles, and then down over his arm.

He smirked at the image and the way the dangling mech whined pathetically because of it.

"Listen," The mech—Meister was pretty sure his name was Flash, Clash, Dash? Oh whatever he didn't care.—choked out around his whine and crying. Meister cocked his helm to the side as if he as listening. In all reality he was just watching the way the energon seeped out of the slashes he'd already so artfully arrange around the mech's torso. "Wh-wh-whatever the-they're paying you! I'll double it! Ju-ju-just stop!"

"Payin' meh?" Meister didn't bother to stop the chuckle that purred out of his engine. "Where ya gettin' off this nonsense of payin' meh?"

If it was possible for the mech to look anymore stupid then he already did hanging up there by broken wrists the way his faceplate twisted up with that sure managed to accomplish it.

Meister was slightly impressed.

"Bu-bu-but—I'll triple it then! Please! Anything!"

"Triple ah nothin' still nothin', mech." Meister snickered, stepping forward again. Swatting the flailing legs out of the way with a flash of claws until he was smiling that smirk he had perfected in the back alleys of Polyhex when he was fifty vorns old. "Ah ain't getin' paid."

"Bu-bu-but you-your Me-me-is-meis—"

"Meister?" The smile bloomed while his visor flashed. "Yea, Ah is. Thing ya should know though, mech. Ah only _work_ for the jobs Ah don't wanna do. Stuff Ah like, well now, that's free of charge."

"Fre-fre-free!?"

"Yea," Meister chuckled, smile twisting into something animalistic and wild as he bared all his teeth, the few sharp ones in the corners of his mouth glittering with the points of the fangs. "Ya is dyin' for nothin'. Sad ain't it?"

And with a swipe of black painted silver claws he struck for the life he'd come all the way up town to take.

Oh how he liked watching energon drip.

There was just nothing else quite like it in this whole messed up world.

One choked gurgle of dying breath and the poorly colored red frame sagged in the restraints from the roof. Claws buried in the center of a chest he had spent the better part of the night slowly pealing back the armor and then protoform from to find the spark chamber underneath. Such meant that when he punched his claws forward just now he'd punctured straight through the fine covered of spark glass in the center of the chest. Overly long—for his size at least, but then upgrades were upgrades for a reason—claws sliced through the thin barrier with what some would have considered a sickening 'squish' to find the whirling ball of blue life hidden under it.

Sparks themselves were easy to destroy once one had easy access to them, and though Meister's hand was now stinging and slightly burnt he yanked his arm back out of the quickly graying with death frame to smirk up at his work.

The things these spoiled rich folk thought wouldn't come back to bite them.

He was still amazed by it even after all these vorns.

Another click of his tongue against the back of his teeth, he settled back down flat on his peds from where he'd risen to his toes. Sticky arm shaken a few times sent splatters of energon flying this way and that. He paid no mind to the mess, it was nothing compared to the lake of the slag forming under the now dead frame swinging from the rafters.

Instead of giving it another thought the dark painted mech strolled away from his work to the cluttered desk he had been circling a little while earlier this evening.

Half empty cubes of highgrade—as if waste was a thing acceptable, for the upper class, the dark mech reminded himself, it was for there was no fuel shortages or rationing among them—littered around piles of datapads and file folders. Tonight's now very dead blubbering windbag had been a member of Iacon's city board. One of the lowest ranks there was in Sentinel Prime's government, but still a title that earned resources and so called power.

Not enough to do much, but enough to twist simple minds into thinking they _could_ do things.

Like stick their overly polished peds into the paychecks of those far more qualified to murder then they were.

To be blunt, Meister didn't much care that the now dead keyboard clicker had been trying to dabble in the drug trade of a Dealer with enough sway to tap the Shadow Stalker on the shoulder and flash some credits under his noseplate. That wasn't the reason he'd taken the job of killing the fool.

Oh no.

Meister turned down the credits and killed the glitch anyway because he hated entitled high-bred fools and because he wanted something in return.

See, the black mech with the gleaming red visor that nowadays everybot and their shivering sparkling called Meister didn't give much of a damn about politics. Sentinel Prime and his damn Council could all burn in pit for all he cared and he didn't mind sending a few of them on their way if they strayed into his cross-hairs but he wasn't into the whole 'be the change ya wanna see thing'.

He much preferred just gutting random glitches and leaving their frames hanging for others to find and gawk over. After all, a murderous reputation was all a mech really had in his neck of the woods.

He most surly was not going to go stand on the sidewalk outside the Senate Building, Palace, or any of the other political wastes of space between here and Towers City with signs and _peacefully protest_.

Oh no.

Things that went bump in the night didn't protest.

Besides, he wasn't killing off political officers because he wanted to _change the world_.

No.

He was killing off political officers because it paid well when he was itching for something he couldn't steal easily and filled him with a sick kind of self-accomplishment. That, and it was getting him closer to what he _really_ wanted.

It was getting him closer to Kaon.

The pit hole of all pit holes. Where all good monsters dreamed of going some orn. Because name Meister might have made for himself across the shadows of this world since the orns when he was a skinny youngling hiding in the back allies of Polyhex holding a glass shard knife, but he wasn't satisfied.

No.

He wanted much, _much_ more.

Getting into the Rings of Kaon was no easy task though. Not if a bot didn't want to be owned while doing it. Meister had no use for collars or brands and slavery just wasn't really all that high up on his things to get done now list.

So, that being the case, it meant he had to try and get into the seedy underbelly of their world the hard way. Or maybe the fun way.

Kind of depends on who was asking.

Why, some might ask, would any _sane_ bot _want_ to get themselves down into the place most dreams went to die?

Well, it was simple really. Bots were more scared of what lurked down there in the darkness then they were of him in his shadows. That and the creatures that thrived down there were not bothered by the notion of a rat that crawled along the allies of the surface.

That irked the dark mech kind of a lot.

So, _obviously,_ he needed to get down there and rectify that horrible misconception that whatever it was that lurked down there was worse than him and what he did on the surface.

Yeah.

It might also be possible that Meister wasn't completely sane either.

Maybe.

Oh well.

He hadn't worried about that prospect since he stopped calling himself _Jazz_ in his own helm though, that wasn't something likely to change anytime soon.

* * *

Most didn't bother to wonder about it, but the truth was, Meister hadn't become the thing he was overnight. The Shadow of Death from Polyhex hadn't been born Meister. He hadn't even been anything close to what he was now until somewhere around fifty five vorns. When hunger, abuse, and fear had taught a mechling wielding a glass shard knife that the first time he spilled energon didn't have to have been an accident.

So, it became something besides an accident, and so did he.

After that, things had just sort of _happened_. Most of it he didn't remember, didn't bother to try. Shadows had been safety since he was a sparkling. He understood them better then he did light. With time though, they became useful and in them he learned the lessons all dark things did.

Then, he learned how to use them.

Now at the ripe age of seven hundred vorns the dark mech had lived longer then he ever should have. He had outlived his city, his breed, and his rights to breathe. He had lived through an Age of Sentinel Prime's reign and he was not impressed.

If anything, he was sort of pissed off.

Not most of the time.

Most of the time he really didn't care overly much, but every now and again, like when that now very dead glitch's file had been shoved across a sticky bar room table to him he was reminded of why it was he didn't like most bots.

Or . . . _any_ bots really.

Most orns he sort of hated them all.

Kinda.

If those who knew his name thought about it they'd probably say one of the reasons he was killing the high class was because of what had been done to his own breed's city. For what had been done to his breed. Because Polyhex was hardly a page in a history book now. No bot wanted to remember what they had stood back and watched happen to thousands while doing nothing about it so they didn't.

Sentinel Prime got his way for the citizens of his world were too ashamed of what they let happened to want to remember it. So an entire breed was forgotten. Washed from the records of history with their own energon. Just like the Tribes.

And no bot had cared, at least, not until it started happening to them.

Now the chaste system was leaving an entire build type as less then alive. Now it was overworking whole types and leaving them to starve by the hundreds of thousands. Now those that were once considered well off and lucky were feeling hunger pains for the first time in their lives because those at the bottom of this damned class ladder were striking out against what they were being forced to do before the Guard was shotting them in the streets.

And all these city bots of the middle class were calling it barbaric, not because the lower class was being forced to work until they died or shot in the street for refusing. But because if they weren't working then there wasn't enough fuel to feed the masses. And the middle class starved while the high class took what there was.

So the middle class started _protesting_ the lack of fuel, not the things that were being done to cause and because of it.

 _That_ was why he was killing high class, and the middle class, and . . . well most bots to be perfectly honest.

Well, that and because he could.

And wanted to.

But mostly because he could.

Spoiled, polished, goody-two-peds, with nothing better to do.

Pit, it was times like these in which Meister was glad he technically didn't existence.

Outside of his criminal record that was.

However, that was just a name, none _really_ knew what he even looked like. Well, at least none that could do anything about it. Those that wanted to find him, didn't have to look all that hard. The underbelly of the world knew him well, and they knew what he wanted.

They also knew his favorite place this side of the Rust Sea to get a drink.

* * *

Tarn was a city on the brink.

As all the lower cities of Cybertron's pecking order it was built on industrial labor and the back of miners digging in the dirt. There were only five _high_ cities known to Cybertron; Iacon, Praxus, Crystal City, Towers City, and Vos. Everything else was what were known as labor cities. In this age everything between Kaon to Simfur were dirty, dangerous, and over crowded. Often lately the sites of riots in the street and labor strikes as the miners, builders, and hard labor workers of their world tried to fight back against a system that was using them to death.

It wasn't working, not on the surface at least.

Sentinel's Elite Guard were slaughtering rioters in the streets for abandoning their work post and in sighting unrest while in the high cities bots wrote signs and waved them over their helms as if like they were doing something to stop it.

Kaon had been the first city to fall. _The_ mining city itself, with a pit dug in the dirt that was said to go so deep it touched the core of the planet. It was _the_ main supplier of fuel for the entire planet. It was the sole reason the society Sentinel had created could function as it did. Because of these big mechs and femmes digging in the dirt, some never having seen sunlight, for the energon to power a world that was wasting it. When the fuel rations for the workers had been cut to a third four hundred vorns ago or so and miners started dying in their recharge from lack of fuel or keeling over while they were working the _unrest_ as the high cities called it started.

Meister was still blown away by the concept of these polished fools being _surprised_ that their poky electric sticks hadn't been enough to stop a revolt of hungry miners with sparklings dying of hunger in the night.

Sentinel called it an atrocity, waved his fingers, and Elite Guard fought back pick axe and sledge hammer wielding miners with plasma rifles and canons.

Kaon's streets and mines were littered with the frames of the dead within a cycle, but not the miners' frames.

Oh no.

The miners sent the Guard crawling back to their master with half the force dead. Then, it got worse.

The fighting was still going on now, Sentinel had gotten not so much smarter but more lethal with what he was sending to try and stop the rioting. The miners had the advantage though. Most of them had been born and raised in that labyrinth of mines. Once they left the cities' surface in smolders they retreated down into the depths of the world where they could live quite easily as Sentinel's dogs chased their own tails trying to hunt them.

When Kaon's fuel production shut down the only other mining city had been forced to pick up the slack. Problem there was, Tarn was in no way capable of handling the demand put upon it. It didn't have the number of workers needed nor the equipment and by that time news of the protests had already spread.

So when harder shifts and less fuel was suddenly forced on this city was it really a surprise when it started rioting in the streets too?

Tarn didn't have the endless mind shafts nor the number of workers that Kaon did and so fighting back was harder for them. There was rumor floating around the shadows of the world though. One that said Tarn was getting help, that Kaon was being orchestrated.

Something was going on in the shadows of the world and Meister wanted to know what. Only way to do that though was to get himself down into the Rings of Kaon. The only piece of the city still functioning because it wasn't _legally_ supposed to be there.

The only question, was how.

* * *

Claws drumming in a long forgotten beat he had never managed to fully get out of his helm, Meister sat alone at a back table in a bar near the border wall of Tarn's miner district. Outside the now familiar sounds of shouting and hollering could be heard like the beat of a song none were really listening too. The shooting hadn't started with such heat in Tarn yet but it seemed sometime this morning an important data clerk had been found murdered in his own home. The local Guard were tearing through the streets trying to find the one that had done it.

According to Enforcer intelligence a well-known mech by the name of Meister was suspected because of the nature of the killing.

The dark mech sitting alone in the corner hid a dangerous smirk behind the lifted rim of his stolen highgrade cube and gloated to himself.

 _Come and get meh._ He chuckled to himself, taking a long drag of his drink while letting his visor covered gaze wonder about the crowded bar. It was fairly full. Bots looking to avoid the outside trouble or just taking a break from their part of it. Many didn't even notice the mech painted like shadows sitting alone in the corner and those that did balked a little and went away.

Meister doubted any of them knew who he _really_ was but that didn't mean they weren't warry of something that seemed to breathe unstable. However, the dark mech was sitting in this bar on the bottom side of an unstable city after he killed a nameless no-body with the intention of getting noticed.

It was sorta the point.

An overgrown white painted, red opticed mech that liked ice chains a little too much sliding into the seat next to him wasn't the kind of noticed he was going for though. In fact, he almost choked on his drink when the huge mass of mech plopped down into the booth next to him holding a rather large bottle of high grade in one fist and a handful of credits in the other.

Meister would deny he flinched from the large weight sitting down next to him to his dying orn, but he had no trouble wiping out the curved knife he favored from his subspace. He should have expected that shoving the pointy end of it up against the big mech's neck cabling would get him nothing but snorted at though.

He should have gutted the big glitch for it out of sheer principle, but well, old debts and slag like that.

"Hi," The big white mech rumbled, turning his helm to look down at the much shorter black mech that was now shoved into the back corner of the booth beside him. The action pushed the pointy end of the glass like knife into the thick cabling of the mech's neck, but he wasn't bothered. He didn't even look nervous.

Damn Meister wanted to punch him.

Why wasn't he punching him?

He should be punching him.

Or driving the point of that knife into the vulnerable wiring it was poking at.

Yeah.

That was a good idea.

A _brilliant_ idea even.

That would make that smug look glittering in those red optics go away.

But Meister didn't.

Instead he left the knife pressed hard against those sensitive neck cables while curling his lips back over his teeth in a sneer.

"Shatterproof."

The white mech grinned, scared, square faceplate with his tall audials standing from the top of his helm and the tattooed black streaks running down in thick lines under his optics to the edges of his smug full lips.

"Oh," He chuckled in that deep, storm like voice of his. "So ya haven't forgotten my name? I'm touched, Jazzmeister. Really."

Meister snorted, slowly lowering the blade away from the bigger mech's neck. Flicking it back into subspace with a twist of his wrist for they both knew he in no way needed the jagged blade if the bigger mech made him angry.

"Ain't forgot. Just don't care." Another long swig of his highgrade hid another smirk as the big mech bristled before trying to brush it off with a flutter of plating.

"Ya sure know how to keep friends don't ya, Jazzmeister?"

"Stop callin' meh that." His gaze narrowed into a thin slit. Only the light shining through the deep red of his visor. The hide didn't matter though because here before him sat one of two of the only bots left alive on this planet that knew Meister's real optic color. That knew who and what he really was.

That still bothered—or dared maybe—to call him by his real name. The one that as far as he was concerned died when Polyhex fell to rust six hundred vorns ago. Jazzmeister was a youngling that had shivered cold, and hungry in the dark. Meister was no longer that bot. He never would be again.

Shatterproof of all mechs in this world knew that. Then again, that was the only reason he knew Meister's real name.

Shatterproof snorted, lifting the big bottle of highgrade from where he had sat it on the table. Pulling the cork from the top, tipping it back in a long swig. Lowering the bottle back to the table after the drink he then tilted his other hand out to spill the handful of credits between them.

Optic ridge lifting over the rim of the visor Meister flicked his gaze over the pile of glittering brass and copper credits. Together that wasn't a bad sum.

Huffing, he took another sip watching Shatterproof while he flicked his claws over the pile of credits making them jingle. Several optics from around the bar looked their way but neither paid it nay mind. Somebot around here was dumb enough to try and steal from either of them then they were dumb enough to die.

A Tribe mech the world had forgotten and a Polyhex relic none had ever known about were not to be toyed with by a bunch of wanna be rebels. Meister might be interested in finding out what it was that was going on in the shadows of Kaon but Shatterproof didn't care.

Mech never had.

"I'll call ya what I like, _Meister_." The big white mech finally chuckled out, swishing the highgrade around in his bottle as he left the pile of credit around in favor of casting his fire red gaze up to find that deep red visor. "Think I earned that."

The black mech bit back a snarl, claws tightening around the cube in his hand.

"Whatcha want, Shatter?" He finally snapped. "Ain't seen hide nor wire of ya in two hundred vorns. Was beginnin' to think ya had gone and gotta ya self killed."

"Want?" Shatterproof questioned. "Nothin', mech. Ya name just been coming up in quite a few places I been lately. Thought I'd track ya down and wonder what it was ya was thinking. Well, that and Foxy wanted to."

He didn't choke on his next drink of highgrade but it was a near thing.

Swallowing hard before he could spew the mess all over the table before him, he twisted in his chair to look up at the mech that considered himself his friend no matter how many time Meister attempted to stab him over the last four hundred vorns.

"Foxy?" He murmured once he finally got the energon down his throat.

"Yeah." Oh how Meister truly did hate that smug smile. If he didn't owe the bastard he'd have killed him long ago. "Foxy."

He then was forced to follow the long, sharp white claw pointing across the table to find the lean yet curved, blood red colored frame draped across the bar on the other side of the crowded room.

 _Well Primus damn it._

Taking another long drag of his drink until he reached the bottom he watched that finally shaped femme turn from the chatting up she was doing to some idiot fool. Hand patting lightly at his side while he grinned like a glitch having no idea she was currently robbing his subspace before she walked away. She swayed away from the drunk fool. Waving over her shoulder with one hand while the other clenched around something shiny she hid before her. Slipping her way through the crowd she all but danced over to the back table. Drawing optics and long looks on her way until the stares realized what was sitting at the table and snapped away.

Meister didn't even bother to wonder if it was him they feared this time though.

He wasn't the one with a death promise oozing out of his very energy field for all those that looked at that femme.

No.

That was Shatterproof.

The dark colored mech didn't care who looked at the femme. Why should he?

Meister rolled his optics. Turning his attention away from his growing company in favor of putting down the now empty glass. He avoided the pile of credits—he'd find out why soon enough—and instead reached for the bottle Shatter had sat on the table. Snatching it up he poured a rather generous amount into his cube.

He was not going to deal with these too idiots sober.

He just wasn't.

Slamming the now less full bottle back onto the table he swiped up his cube again. Taking a long steep drink just in time for the dark red painted femme with the pale white faceplate and piercing red optics to slide into the other side of the booth across from them. An award winning smile on her attractive faceplate that Meister had no doubt could charm the armor off many an unsuspecting glitch.

The few shiny energon crystals she placed on the table before her were proof enough then that. Considering she'd just swiped them from a mech's subspace while she chatted him up and he hadn't even felt the tingle of her breaching his failsafes.

Because before Meister now sat the _best_ pickpocket to ever grace Cybertron's dull atmosphere with her presence. Her and her very big muscle of a mate smiling at her from Meister's side now.

And _pit_ they were making gooey optics at each other again.

Primus he might be sick.

Choking on his own breath he looked away with a twisted expression of discuss, sticking out his tongue and groaning like a sick sparkling while he shook his helm back and forth coughing.

Shatterproof seemed to find his discomfort and discuss amusing—bastard always had—while the pretty femme across from them rolled her bright optics. Smiling that smile over at Meister until he couldn't resist looking up to find those startling bright optics.

Damn femme.

He never had been able to ignore her. It was what got him into this mess with the two of them in the first place. All those orns ago when a half grown mechling had snuck into a detail shop and tried to snatch whatever he could get his claws on.

He'd instead got himself caught by that blinding smile and bright optics. Struck dumb like any stupid mechling would in the presence of such beauty until this big hulking white shadow beside him had snatched him up and shook his little thief self like a rag doll.

Meister—even after all these vorns—wasn't sure how to describe what it was that happened next. He just knew he didn't get killed and the mated pair didn't hurt him like they should. They weren't kind to him either, but well, shadow lessons never were. That had been in Tyger Pax some five hundred vorns ago in a time that Meister didn't like to remember.

The only thing he kept in his mind from that time of his life when killing had still made him sick in the shadows after he did it was these two. These two who he should hate for tossing him back out on his aft time and time again after he broke into their shop trying to steal from them with a leaking noseplate and a sore helm. These two who had kept throwing him out until the orn in which he finally pulled the mesh over their optics.

Shatterproof still had the scar from that night running along his left cheek.

Meister had been sure he would die that night, but instead he had gotten a dark chuckle out of the big mech with the leaking faceplate pinning him to the wall over a broken safe and then he had had . . . _friends_.

Sort of.

He kept showing up, they let him. He learned the ropes of the shadows, they taught him tricks every now and again.

He grew into a monster that's name made other shake, but they were two that didn't when they heard it.

Because they knew that twisted smile of his wasn't going to be pointed at them. Because honor was something only monsters of this world had left. And sadistic killer Meister might be, but he was in fact not an oath breaker.

Even when he wanted to be.

Like now.

They were messing up his plan damn it!

"Foxtrot," He greeted the femme through gritted teeth, taking another long drag of the drink he had stolen. "Lookin' good."

"Always am, young mech." She chuckled airy back at him. That sweet, melody voice of hers only adding to her almost unnatural beauty.

He bit back his natural sarcastic response in favor of looking over at the big mech leaning against the table beside him. Shatterproof looked very smug.

More smug than usual.

Was he missing something?

A bit of unease swirled in the bottom on his tanks in a way it hadn't since he was small. It had been so long in fact since he was wary of other bots that he almost had forgotten the feeling. He didn't enjoy having the feeling again now.

He took another long drag of his drink hoping it would make it go away.

"Whatcha want?" He whisper hissed at the both of them after he dropped his now empty drink back to the table. Shatterproof tipped the bottle over his cube again refilling it once more.

Meister took another swig just for something do as the femme shrugged.

"We're just looking for you, young mech." She said as if it was the most normal thing in the world to say.

Okay.

So Meister was starting to get seriously confused here.

Optics narrowing into a thin slit behind the red curve of his visor he tilted his helm at the pair of them. Taking another sip of his drink he flicked that narrow gaze between them thinking. Sure they had gone long periods of time without seeing or talking as Meister had grown older. He hadn't needed nor wanted their help in a very long time and they were in no way looking to be responsible for some other mech.

It was a sort of partnership that lasted between them because Meister honored the debt he owned Shatterproof of having not killed him all those vorns ago. He'd knocked off a few annoyances for them over the vorns and they'd even worked a few jobs together when they all liked the profit or purpose.

However, the dark mech wasn't kidding when he said it had been over two hundred vorns since he saw either of them. They'd parted ways in Simfur a while back after Meister had killed some very important senator just because he could and the backlash worried the mated pair.

He hadn't held it against them and though they did their usual share of cursing at each other for farewells he hadn't thought much more about it until now. Once or twice they'd cross his mind but not enough to care.

He didn't have _friends_.

He didn't _care_.

And last he'd checked they hadn't really _cared_ about him.

So what was going on here.

"Why?" He huffed at her, knowing better then to growl at her while Shatterproof was sitting at his side. Sure, _now_ he could hand the mech his spark on a platter but that didn't mean in the past he had been able to. There was still a measure of respect swirling down in Meister's spark for the big mech.

He might not _care_ about them but that didn't mean he wanted to fight them either. He owned them after all and while most like him would have done anything within their power to make that truth go away as soon as possible he wasn't like that.

Maybe he should be.

With others he was.

But with these two . . . no.

He'd never quite figured out why that was either.

Huh.

That might not be a good thing.

He took another drink, turning his attention to Shatterproof this time as it was the big white mech that spoke.

"Like I said." He said. "There is a lot of talk goin' around about ya. Enough that somebot wants to meet ya."

Meister perked up.

Or . . . well . . . he tried.

His mind perked up but his frame wasn't so much agreeing with the concept. For a nano he stalled. Catching on confusion boiling in his gut he didn't understand why he tried to pick up his hands and they didn't obey.

He then tried to twist his helm down to look at himself and that didn't work either.

For a nano he sat in confusion, not understanding before it clicked in his helm.

He tried to twist his helm to look up at the big mech sitting smugly at his side and the femme smiling sweetly at him from across the table but his vison was rapidly clouding out. Still, he managed to growl out a low note.

"Ya _drugged_ meh."

Shatterproof snickered at his side. "Yeah, Megatron wants to meet ya. Seems ya gettin' what you wanted, young mech."

With that, Meister pitched forward toward the table before him the whole world fading into darkness.

* * *

Waking up to a helm-ache fit to split his processor in two wasn't a new concept to Meister. Quite the contrary, he spent more nights drunk then he did sober as of late. Part of it was spite out of the fuel restriction and part of it was just because he could.

He didn't enjoy the way it made him feel or the way it made him less good at what he did, but he did like the way it made even more bots shy away from him when he was that way.

However, this time when he came too with the feeling like somebot was driving a pick axe between his optics he didn't quite know why it was he felt like that. For a few nanos after consciousness found him he didn't move.

An old habit he had picked up from his youth in a box on the street. For there was no telling what you might hear when whatever it was that was around you didn't know you were awake. This time though, as he found himself hunched over in a chair he realized without even having to open his optics that he hadn't put himself there by his own choice.

Waking up in handcuffs tended to bring that into focus very quick.

Where most would have panicked and startled flailing around trying to get out even while their processors were still catching up with what was happening around them Meister just hung limp. Instinctively not allowing his frame to so much as shudder with waking.

It had taken vorns and vorns and _vorns_ to rewrite such basic coding inside himself but eventually he'd gotten it right. So now, he hung limp. Processor slowly overriding the blurry haze of whatever had been in that . . . _drink._

Oh yeah.

He'd gotten his dumb aft drugged.

Drugged by Shatterproof and Foxtrot.

Huh.

Maybe he was going to have to reevaluate that whole honor bound not to kill them thing.

Because yeah.

Drugged and waking up sitting in a chair with his arms handcuffed behind him and to said chair. Not good.

Not good at all.

This wasn't on his list of things not to get pissed even at sort of friends about. This was in fact on one of his other lists.

The 'kill-the-idiot-that-did-it list'.

It wasn't often a very long list. Because nothing stayed on it very long. He tended to eradicate whoever it was that was on it from existence with extreme vengeance.

Resisting the urge to click his tongue against his teeth in frustration Meister kept himself loose. Optics closed tightly behind his visor and audio horns still as he sat there limply. Casting out his sense of hearing and smell he tried to assess as best he could what was going on around him.

Colored his visor might be, but it took quite a lot of effort to keep it from showing the shine of his optics behind it. It was not a program he could run and still look like he was out cold.

At least, not very well.

He was more willing at the moment to take his chances with figuring out what was happening to him with his optics shut.

So.

Cold, hard, very sturdy chair beneath him?

Check.

Handcuffs humming with energy dampeners?

Check.

Smell of dirt, grim, and cold?

Check.

The heavy pressure in the air that only came with being deep underground?

Check.

Not a lot of sound, no echoes, no wind, not even any ped steps?

Check.

 _Huh._

So he was chained up underground in some small room on a chair in the middle of it and he had been left completely alone.

His optics flashed open with a gleam behind his visor allowing him to find himself trapped all alone in total darkness.

Slowly, with a crick in his neck that only time in an awkward arrangement could bring, Meister sat himself up right in the chair taking in the inky nothingness pressing in from all sides. The only light around him was what coming off his visor as he cast his attention this way and that.

They'd left him all alone in a dark room chained up with no idea why he was there, how he got there, or what was going to happen next.

For a nano he sat there staring into the darkness until finally he clicked his tongue and shook his helm.

"Amateurs."

It took him a grand total of three klicks to mute his energy field, dislocate his wrists, and slip his hands out of the cuffs.

Fraggers hadn't even used good cuffs.

One pull in of his energy field out of their reach and they clicked off as if he was dead.

Pathetic.

The hardest part of that was snapping his wrists back into place once he got them loose. That hurt like the pit, but he ignored the pain in favor of pushing himself up from his horribly crafted prison seat to pitch his gaze around the darkness.

Another two klicks of carefully reaching out with his field and then stepping—in case of trip wires or explosives, mind you, he was bored not stupid—brought him to a firm wall. Reaching out he splayed his hands along the surface.

Cool hard stone and metal is what he was met with, but not the refined texture of the stuff once it became building materials. No, this stuff was still alive, deep in the world in which the cities dug it from.

So, yep.

He was right about being underground.

Not that he thought he could have been wrong, what with the smells and the sounds, but one always liked to make sure.

Right?

Right.

Sliding his palm along the surface, making sure to keep his energy field out and searching around him, he circled the room in search of the door he knew had to be there somewhere. There was always the chance with underground holding rooms that the door was actually in the roof and it was more drop down pit then room. However, if that was the case then his chair wouldn't have been in the center. It would have been in the way of the door and the way in and out if that was the case.

That meant the door was in one of these walls. Likely, judging by the size of the room, a large one to accommodate large bots.

He found it moments later without trouble.

A dip in the stone, an instep, and then the unmistakable smell of grease.

So, not an electronic door then.

This one was manual.

Which meant there would be no panels to hotwire and codes to crack. This door was all about pure strength.

Pity.

He was looking forward to ripping apart some wiring.

Placing himself in the center of the sliding rock door Meister allowed himself to think for a moment. Rubbing absently at his smarting wrists that he was going to make somebot pay for later he thought about his options and his reasons.

"Megatron." He mumbled the name to himself, rubbing his palms along the wall. "Shatter said Megatron."

He clicked his tongue.

"Who the pit's Megatron?"

Was that the so called _orchestrator_ of the chaos happening in the lower levels of Kaon that was spreading up into its neighboring city of Tarn.

"Wha' kinda name is _Megatron_?"

And why did it sound kind of familiar?

Oh well, no matter.

He'd figure it out after he got out of this rock box.

Hopefully he'd get to kill somebot for it too.

A bit of scratching and scraping around in the dark got him a hand hold he knew had to be there. See, _logically_ there shouldn't be a way to open a door like this from the inside. Kind of defeated the purpose, but Meister had been willing to bet after the lack luster state of his bindings had come to his attention that whoever it was that was thinking they could lock him in a box wasn't one of those smart enough to realize that.

When his claws hung in a small groove made for claws near the upper right side of the slab he was proven right.

Now, the hard part, making his relatively small in comparison to most other mechs frame move something that was likely made with the intention of miners in mind.

Meister, as was pretty obvious, was not built like a miner. Or even a big mech.

He was slight and built for speed, but he had never let it get in his way before.

It took some leverage, and a lot of cursing but he did manage to get the huge slab to move. He'd kind of expected there to be some big guard on the other side, but afterward he supposed that was giving these fools too much credit.

When he poked his helm though the gap in the door he just made he stood there for a few moments looking back and forth down an empty, lit with lanterns stone hall kind of hoping some random guard would jump out to try and shot him.

He was very disappointed.

"What?" He grumbled to himself, slipping out of the door and picking a direction down the hall. "Did Ah get snatched by a gang of blind sparklins'?"

And how could Shatterproof and Foxtrot have anything to do with such rank amateurs?

Seriously.

He was becoming insulted.

Sure they weren't anywhere near as good at murdering bots as he was, but they hadn't survived the fall of the Tribes by being stupid. What was going on here?

He wasn't sure, but he intended to find out.

He walked for quite a few hallways until he finally found something worth doing anything about. Two large, dull grey painted mechs with red optics that looked like they were meant to be guarding something but were instead goofing off.

Visor glinting when he caught sight of them, Meister didn't even bother with trying to hide his approach.

Nope.

He simply strolled around the corner, pranced right up to them, skipped, hopped, and dug his claws into their necks before they could so much as stop staring at him. Ripping backward he landed in a crouch watching their big frames fall to the ground with a thud as energon gurgled up from the slices in their necks.

They were dead before he straightened back out of his bend.

It was rather merciful if he did say some himself.

Stepping over the rapidly greying death frames he continued on at his skip down the hall looking for the next bot. Trailing a line of energon from his stained claws as he went.

Six more random bots fell dead—some with screams some without—before Meister finally came across something worth his while. Or more accurately, it found him.

Another random stranger had fell gurgling his last breath on his own energon at Meister's clawed toes when the dark mech looked back up from his chuckling to find something different standing in his path.

Tall, lean, lanky, almost sickly thin for a mech's frame. He was a sleek silver kind of grey that looked more like smoke then any other color paint Meister had seen before.

It was kind of intriguing and warranted a pause from the dark mech as he straightened to take in the stranger.

He was at least double Meister's height with rather thin looking plating that still had a strong air about it. It was those knowing red optics shinning back at him from a sharply shaped black expression holding faceplate that stood out the most though.

Lowering his energon dripping claws the shadow colored mech tilted his audio horn tipped helm to the side. Staring down the hall with a dark smirk curling his lips Meister regarded the long mech with the very pale red optics while energon dripped, dripped, dripped from his claws.

A long klick passed in which the two stood silently at different ends of the hall staring at each other until finally Meister grew bored. Tipping his helm to the other side he drawled out, flicking his hand splattering energon as he went at the dead frame at his peds.

"These ya clowns?"

The tall smoke colored mech didn't reply. He didn't so much as twitch. He simply stood there at the end of the hall with his arms loose at his side staring back at Meister as if he was evaluating something.

It was unnerving in a way that Meister didn't want to admit too.

When his lack of an answer spread onto several more klicks the black mech became sort of annoyed.

Smirk slipping from his lips he narrowed his gaze behind his red visor at the long mech.

"Ah don't like bein' ignored." He hissed, stained blue claws flexing at his sides. "This joke show on account a ya or Ah gotta be killin' somebot else?"

Silence.

Those pale red optics only stared back at him from an expressionless silver faceplate. Staring back at it Meister took note that the slimness of him went into his faceplate as well. High cheek struts and slim cheeks. A very distinct point of his jaw and a sharpness of his helm.

He looked like a flier, but no wings hung at his back.

Meister was slightly confused.

Because the mech was tall but he didn't seem quite big enough to be a flier and with no visible wings the speedster really didn't get it.

He didn't want to bother with it either.

So he didn't.

When he was refused an answer again he let the growl he'd been keeping held tight in his engine since he woke up out.

The deep grumble of his high performance engine echoing around the empty hall around them. Bouncing off the cold stone in pitches and echoes that amplified it until it was nearly the only sound to be heard at all. Even over their own internal systems.

Meister relished in it.

For there was nothing like sound to have bots quaking in their armor.

He had used it plenty of time before.

The long mech at the end of the hall just kept on standing there though.

Meister _snarled_ at the lack of reaction and charged.

Bonding down the hallway at a sprint he wasn't sure what he expected but the tall mech standing there watching him come wasn't it. Halfway through his headlong charge maybe he should have stopped to consider that there was a _reason_ the mech didn't bother so much as lifting a weapon in reaction to his snarling and charge. He didn't though, much to his later embarrassment, he was too busy being pissed that all this had happened in the first place.

So he charged, claws poised with full plans to gut this idiot too before moving on to find either his so called friends or whoever it was that paid them to pull this. He ran, he leaped—

And he got caught mid-air around the throat by a flung out silver _something._

Crashing back into the ground in a skidding slide he went helm over heels four times from the force of the throw before crashing back into one of the hall walls.

Pain seethed through Meister's neural net. Pings of hurt alerting him to the deep gash some rock had cut into his back, but also to the searing cuts now around his neck. Cuts that felt like some talon or something had taken a hold of him and then tossed him like some sparkling's toy.

Scrambling back upright he flipped back to his clawed toes, optics wide but hidden behind his visor as he snapped himself back around to face the long mech who . . . had . . . tentacles?

 _What?_

Meister stalled—he'd deny it under pain of death—but he did.

Crouched there on his clawed toes he snarled and glared but he stalled. Optics wider then he'd like to admit as he stared back down the hall at the tall mech standing there exactly where he had been but now with several long coils of flexing and hoovering _tentacles_ slipping from slits in his side plating. They were twice as long as he was, wiping back and forth around him like angry snakes, thicker then Meister's arm as they swayed about. Each tipped in three talon like claws that opened and closed freely on their own.

In all his vorns in the shadows of this world Meister had never seen anything like it. At least, not on anything _alive_.

He'd seen the likes of which on quite a few sparkeaters as he was running away from them, but . . . on a _living_ mech?

This mech was alive _right_?

He had to be.

That was no sparkeater.

Meister has seen sparkeaters. He knew what one of those damned things looked like and _alive_ most certainly wasn't one of them.

This mech, even if he had weird appendages, was most definitely _alive._

Refusing to give ground like the clenching in his tanks said he needed to do, Meister forced himself up right. Teeth bared in a low snarl he flexed his claws by his sides while he glared back at the mech and the twisting limbs snaking around him like they had minds of their own. Now that he was watching them sway before the mech he could see one of them was dripping in energon. Three pronged claws coated in it.

His neck stung at the sight, reminding him of the tears in it that were slowly leaking down in thin streams of blue against the dark color of his armor and cabling.

He made Meister _leak_.

Nothing had made him leak in _vorns_.

"Okay." He snarled, engine roaring in his chest. "Ya has ta die now."

The tall mech didn't seem impressed.

In fact, he didn't seem anything. For he still lacked any kind of expression while he stood there with those knowing pale red optics staring back at him while twisting snake like appendages swayed back and forth in front of him.

Every instinct in Meister wanted to charge again. Charge and swipe, and scratch, and pull, and tear, and _cut_ until the damn swaying limbs and the still mech that owned them stopped moving. He had learned his lesson though. Charging headlong into this one wasn't going to work.

Even if he wanted it too.

His right hand flexed while he stepped forward in a twist to hide the searching limb. Yanking his glittering glass like knife from subspace was as easy as a flick of his wrist while he kept growling toward the tall glitch.

Those pale optics watched him, but he didn't care.

Each step measured as he eased his way forward. Watching those twisting limbs sway to keep track of him. Growl still low in his chest he stepped left, faked a charge, and threw the knife.

The glittering blade flew the same time he threw himself into another sprint. As he figured it would one of those swaying cable tentacle things caught the knife and flung it away, but it missed him when he charged after it. Another two did catch him though.

One around the neck again while the other wrapped around his torso. Picking him up like he was nothing. Hauling him off the ground. Seemed the mech and his many limbs didn't see the second knife coming though.

A thunk into a shoulder followed by a low hiss was Meister's only reward before he was tossed into another wall. This crash came with a bent audio horn and an ache in his side, but scrambling back to his peds he managed to miss both his knifes getting thrown back at him.

They clattered into the stone wall behind him, but he didn't reach for them. He was too busy keeping his optics on those pale red ones that narrowed now when they looked down to the thin line of energon leaking from a gap in his shoulder plating.

His expression didn't so much as twitch but those pale optics were narrowed. When they flickered back up to find Meister's the tentacles twisted almost angrily but the shadow colored mech just snarled back.

For a nano they stared at each other again, assessing, weighing, planing before finally the tall mech spoke.

"Unadvised." It was a low, cold, calculated kind of voice. The likes of which nothing Meister had ever heard before. Crackling in a way that only came with lack of use, but powerful in a way only few could be simply in a voice.

It was striking enough that Meister paused at the first sound of it. His aching audio horns flinching back from the sheer _presence_ of it before he could muster up a hiss of his own.

"What the frag was that ya walking bell fish?"

"Attacking me." The mech elaborated. If that could be called an elaboration. Meister sort of doubted it. "It is unadvised."

"Oh yea'?" The shadow colored mech couldn't help but cackle at that. Not allowing himself to be unnerved by this mech that had already thrown him off attacking twice and wasn't so much as twitching a lip at not only the stab wound leaking down his chest but the fact that he gave the knives _back_. "And whys that?"

"Failure." Was his simple answer.

It sort of pissed Meister off.

He didn't stop to consider if charging again was a good idea, but he snatched up his knives and did it again anyway. He actually managed to get pretty close too. Hacking off the end of one coiling tentacle and digging his knives deep in another only for another grip to suddenly be had around his neck and with a very hard smack to a stone wall behind him the world went black.

* * *

 **Poor Meister, he really thought he'd just roll right over him. Mech will have to learn the hard way that Soundwave is no pushover. Takes quite the mech to keep up with Megatron after all.**

 **So, what did you think?**

 **If any of you have read GG then you've heard of Foxtrot and Shatterproof. *slightly evil grin* Yeah, I love those too and have decided to throw them into this universe as well, but disregard almost everything you know about them from GG if you have. They are very different and have a very different purpose in this story. Though cookie points to any of you who have already figured out just who they _really_ are in this story. Don't worry you've go a bit to figure it out if you haven't. I'm just curious to see if any of you can guess it.**

 **Anyway, the story really begins now. Meister is quite the character isn't he? I'm very interested in seeing what you all think of the change between him and little Jazz from the prologue. After all its been seven hundred vorns for him. He's lived and done a lot. You'll see some of it as we go along but the only real important stuff is touched on here.**

 **As for now though, welcome to the beginning of an uprising that will turn a whole world to ash and one shadow stalkers place in it. It's going to be quite the ride. I look forward to seeing what you all thought about this chapter!**

 **See you all next chapter!**

 **-Jaycee**

 **P.S. I have decided I am going to make a separate blog for this story. Hopefully I will have it up sometime next week so check out my profile for the link if you are interested in dropping by.**


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